Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3751, January 24, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3752 duties.

Is Tap Caparo drillable?

That’s the question facing Mars researchers, reports Natalie Moore, a mission operations specialist at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California.

Curiosity MAHLI photo produced on Sol 3750 of Tapo Caparo post-preload test.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Perhaps this drilling target is too hard like the robot’s last Marker Band drill attempts at Amapari, Encanto, and Dinira, Moore adds.

Scratches and a divot

Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imagery of the post-preload test of Tap Caparo has revealed something rover scientists hadn’t seen for a while: Dust Removal Tool (DRT) scratches and a divot from the pre-load test!

Curiosity Mast Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3750. February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“This was a good sign; this block wasn’t as hard as our last few drill targets (which did not get deep enough to collect sample),” Moore notes. By midday the geochemistry data from the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) came down “and both teams went to work analyzing Tapo Caparo’s chemistry to determine if the mineralogy was distinct enough to warrant gathering sample.”

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rover team decided wholeheartedly to proceed with Drill Sol 2 and finally (hopefully) will be able to sample depth before leaving the Marker Band area for good, Moore explains.

Drill plans

“Our modeling tools work extra hard on Drill Sol 2 plans so there’s an incentive to keep things moving early in the day. But since we’ve planned Drill Sol 2 four other times in the past ~three months, our team knew exactly what to do to make planning go as smooth as possible,” Moore reports.

Drilling takes a lot of rover energy and pre-drill planning is kept to a minimum. So, the plan calls for using sol 3752 for a full drill including lots of documentation imaging during and after.

Moore notes that the only non-drill activities on that sol will be some Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) atmospheric measurements and a Navcam twilight cloud survey since Curiosity is still in Mars cloud season.

Curiosity Mast Camera Right image taken on Sol 3750, February 23, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Remote science

Sol 3753 will be filled with remote science: Mastcam taking the lead for data volume with >60 full images taken midsol, ChemCam following close behind with 21 Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) frames, some afternoon Mastcam images showing the atmospheric opacity near the sun, and lastly a Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) photo to hopefully get better exposure on what’s under the rover than what was taken on sol 3749.

In the middle of all this remote science, an early-afternoon arm block contains sample drop-off activities to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite, “assuming the drill succeeds and sample is collected,” Moore adds.

Earth and Mars: in-sync

On the last sol (3754) planned, more time is dedicated to remote science with lots more Mastcam images, ChemCam Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and RMI, and Navcam’s usual long-distance movies to maybe catch dust devils and other atmospheric occurrences.

“We had a sholiday (soliday + holiday) last weekend,” Moore says, “so Earth and Mars are pretty in-sync right now with timing. That means our drill data should come down roughly 11am Saturday morning, whatever the outcome!”